California, a State of Laws—Or Not
What laws do we have to follow? Seems like there is an obvious answer to this question, but in California there is evidence that one gets to pick and choose. Illegal fireworks went off all around me on July 4. Some caused brush fires. The users of the fireworks faced no penalties. I see people […]
LA Lawsuit Settlement Allowed Skid Row Conditions Everywhere in City
Why is homelessness increasing in Los Angeles? According to a count taken in January, homelessness is up 23 percent across L.A. County over 2016, a total of more than 55,000 people. News stories round up the usual suspects: high rents, low-paying jobs, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, domestic violence, and the release of prison or jail […]
Why Socialism Is Back
Even as Venezuela falls deeper into crisis, and the former Soviet bloc nations groan under its legacy, socialism is coming back, and in a big way. Its key supporters are not grizzled pensioners yearning for Marxist security, but a whole new generation, most of whom have little memory of socialist failure. Although the trend is a-historic, it’s […]
The Minimum Wage Disruption
Recently, I read an announcement posted in a place of business that told customers the establishment was raising membership dues because of the minimum wage increase. However, it was not because the establishment had many minimum wage workers, the announcement went on to say, but because of the increase in minimum wage, the business felt […]
Will President Trump and a Republican Congress End Federal Taxable income Deduction for State Income Tax?
(Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of Arnold Steinberg’s examination of the politics and logic of federal taxable income deductions for state income taxes and the consequences for California.) The conspiracy theoreticians discern in the current atmosphere a Trump scheme, because repealing the state income tax deduction will profoundly affect two egregiously BLUE states – […]
California’s Housing Supply Rx: Change Now or Lose Future Generations
California’s housing supply and affordability crisis is well-chronicled and has attracted national attention from several noted scholars and economists. The numbers are stark: California’s median home price of $550,000[1] is one of the most expensive in the country at a time when its homeownership rate of 54 percent ranks last. In June, the Center for California Real […]
Like Drought Never Happened: Budget Omits Funds for Water
A few weeks ago, the governor and other state politicians ran victory laps proclaiming their passage of California’s new record budget. The behemoth budget — the largest spending plan in our state’s history — provides $183 billion to fund many diverse programs and projects deemed necessary to the people and government of California. Their speeches forgot, […]
Rendon Is Trying to Be a Grown Up And For That Trumpist Leftists Must Punish Him
Who does Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon think he is? I mean, where does he get the idea that he can be some sort of grown-up? Doesn’t he know he’s in California politics? This is the era of Trump, and it would be totally unfair if California and its leftists didn’t get to behave as irresponsibly […]
The Bullying Pulpit
Nurse Ratched is at it again. Like the controlling nurse in Ken Kesey’s classic “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, RoseAnn DeMoro is taking another “my way or the highway” stand—this time over the California Nurses Association’s single payer health care proposal—SB 562. DeMoro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association, has declared war on […]